Tag: soccer

Make money, spend money. This is the philosophy of many of the top clubs in the world. Each will spend ludicrous amounts of money to buy the “best” players and create a super club. Thank Real Madrid for the Galacticos club mentality and thank business tycoons and minted mobsters for the incredible influx of money in all of the top leagues. With this money comes expectation of revenue and winning. As much as I would like to sit here and say winning is most important, I’m fairly confident that if Man City finished 4th in the league and made it to the knock-out round in the Champions League, and merchandise flew off the shelves to the tune of $500 million and the TV deals continued to break records, it would not matter that the club underachieved and won nothing. It’s an interesting time in World Football and who knows if there is a bubble to burst. Check out this graphic below (Deloitte) and enjoy some stats:

If there is one thing that is certain, success does not necessarily guarantee an extended stay at the Bernabeu. Rafael Benitez lasted 25 games at the helm, winning 68% of them. If you had the same, ludicrous, managerial policy as Real Madrid, every single Premier League manager with over 100 games coached would be out. Sir Alex Ferguson’s win percentage was 65%, Arsene Wenger is hovering around 58%. The bottom line is, in a game where the line between winning and losing continually gets smaller, it has increasingly become more difficult to win everything all the time. Parity is a good thing for the leagues but is a disaster for some owners to understand. Zidane is one of the best players and possibly the best midfielder of all-time. This will not hide him from Florentino Perez’s policies. If history is any indication, Zidane should already be looking for his next gig.

Starwars has taken over the box-office and it seems the footballing world has taken notice. Check out the video below of Omar Gonzalez’s unveiling. The former LA Galaxy defender signed with Pachuca FC today and it seems like Darth Vader wanted to join in the fun!

Louis van Gaal is under a lot of pressure largely due to the over emphasis on his incredibly rigid practices and lack of formational freedom during games. Manchester United is struggling to find goals and Thierry Henry does a great job explaining why. We all know that Thierry Henry’s thought processes were ahead of everyone else. We also know that his goalscoring record across all teams is prolific. For all his success, we must assume that he has some kind of footballing analytics in his brain that are useful for anyone to listen to and learn from. Here is a fantastic example of that. Henry analyzes Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona and uses different examples from different years that orchestrate the same point and movement. It is a great watch! Click here to have a look: https://streamable.com/e/u4uj

Everyone knows the best player in the world is also pretty diminutive. Everyone also knows that second best player in the world is an absolute specimen of human and a bit taller. The great part about this information is that soccer has no definitions of height specifically of linked to world-class footballers. That’s why anyone can play and anyone can be successful. So I pitch this out to you… which team would you choose if you had to take only players over six feet tall or only those under 5′ 8?” The decision would be tough but I can tell you this, I would pay an incredible sum of money to watch this game go down.

Nigeria did not make it easy. As much as the refs were trying to keep Nigeria in it via phantom offside calls and missed penalties, the USWNT found a way through via an excellent goal from none other than legend and future hall-of-famer, Abby Wambach. Check it below:
The USWNT will continue the tournament against the third place finisher from Group B/E/F, with the opponent to be determined after tomorrow’s final Group Stage matches. The Round of 16 contest will take place June 22 at 8 p.m. ET at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton.

One-club men do not exist. Not in the money-laden footballing culture that we live in today. This make Steven Gerrard’s accomplishments at Liverpool even more impressive. He consistently turned down moves to other clubs because he truly loved and truly believed in what he was a part of. Even more impressive is that Gerrard found the net 186 times. His role in the team changed drastically over the years, from a young-energy filled box to box goal-scoring machine, to a deep-lying playmaker that could ping the ball wherever he wanted. The transition was impressive as were his exploits at the club. Take some time and appreciate the 186 goals below: